New Media Studies Autoblog, Summer 07

I had one of those weird dreams the other night. You know the kind–the ones that happen right as you’re waking up, and it takes you a few minutes to sort out what’s real and what isn’t. I rolled over in bed and saw huge butterflies with black and dark violet wings fluttering around my room. Some of them were on the ground, dying, and some were still in the air, but just seemed to be waiting for their turn. Eventually I realized that there weren’t really butterflies in my room.
I think I’m unraveling a little at the edges.
My script, while not polished, is done. I’m filling in camera directions now. Its evolution was interesting, and it’s not at all what I thought it would be. I think I like it. (We’ll see if I still like it after I get some sleep for the first time in over 48 […]

Original post by arynna

What does it mean to capture something with a cell phone camera? Instant gratification? Mobility? Convenience? Simplicity? Why am I so fascinated by such a simple camera? (although in theory not quite so simple because I am still baffled as to how digital photography works, I mean really, it is amazing).
Perhaps I enjoy it so much because it is an instantaneous way to capture bits and pieces of moments in time which I can then upload onto my computer and then in turn upload them to a photo sharing/storing website like Flickr so that my memories are preserved in case my brain starts to leak (which it most likely will as time goes by).
But what does it mean to me to have a camera readily at my finger tips?  Do I take photos for purposes solely benefiting myself?  Do I want to share them with others?  What does it mean by […]

Original post by Peanut!

Education can be defined as the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.
“Our cultural concept of education and knowledge is based upon the idea of building something up from a ground, from zero, and starting piece by piece to put things together, to construct edifices. It is addictive. If we approach this process from the other direction, considering it to be backwards, or subtractive, all sorts of things start to happen.  Scientists always marvel at nature, at how it seems to be some grand code, with a built-in sense of purpose.  Discoveries are made which reveal that more and more things are related, connected. Everything appears to be aware of itself and everything else, all fitting into an interlocking whole. We quite literally carve out our own realities.  If you […]

Original post by Amanda

I am doing my final project on Facebook.  I am trying to decide how to incorporate it into the class.  I have two ideas so far: making a facebook page for the class or creating a facebook group.  I’m not really sure what else.  I am going to incorporate some of the applications on facebook, (there are 80-something now!) because there are some really cool ones.  I’m trying to come up with other ideas too.  I’m still brainstorming though – I am going to work on it a lot on Wednesday, since we don’t have class.  I’ll post more about it later when I think of some new stuff!

Original post by Ashley

Alright…so, talked to Dr. C about my project and decided it would probably be best if CCTV were dumped from the list. This leaves blogging and citizen journalism together, and those two mesh rather well so I think this project has gotten less hectic. I found new sources in Technorati.com and was told to see what wikipedia has to say about citizen journalism in general. I guess I really just have to build out what I want this project to answer and make it…well…inspiring so that I’m not staring at my computer with a blank look and hating every minute I spend working.
Last night was probably one of the most interesting discussions we’ve had, and we left on many tangents. From the quote “faked interaction can be an annoyance” we went off on several tangents, one of which being if ignorance was really bliss. We also talked about the best […]

Original post by georgestreet

The suspicion came to me today during Sociology, shortly after having been asked what was the biggest cause in environmental destruction. The burning of non-renewable fossil fuels, my group and I first thought; more than just the pollution that emits from them are the dangers of ozone depletion, which theoretically fuels Global Warming, and wars over obtaining every last drop of oil. Apathy, another group thought, because we don’t care to stop the destruction of the environment. Government and corporations, said the third group, because they are the only people with significant power to the end environmental destruction they cause (which would ultimately be a suicide).
I’m not sure that any of these get to the heart of the problem, though. The genealogy digs much deeper into the ground. We burn fuel for energy. We use energy to build and to mend, weave, harvest, transport, illuminate, communicate, i.e. produce. We progress […]

Original post by humanisticmystic

My previous post was a short “movie” created by my roommate, Justin, (with a little help from myself as well) of our friend, Eric’s 21st Birthday Party… which actually took place last November… so when you think about it… all the footage had been sitting around awhile before anything was made of it.
To start off, there was a lot of footage, a lot more than this 1:39 min movie shows.  If I remember correctly we had a good 90 minutes worth of footage, but as with any movie most of it ends up on the clipping room floor… or in our case, not used.
All sound from the footage was removed, and in place the sound from the “300″ trailer was placed in.  The key in the making of this video was making clips seem like they fit with the sound from the trailer.  It took several hours of going through […]

Original post by Amanda

“If an entity is sufficiently non-humanlike, then the humanlike characteristics will tend to stand out and be noticed easily, generating empathy. On the other hand, if the entity is “almost human”, then the non-human characteristics will be the ones that stand out, leading to a feeling of “strangeness” in the human viewer.”(Wikipedia)

~

~

Original post by arynna

Let’s see….looking at my notes now…there isn’t much on there for me to write about. I’m seeing a doodle of a mouse, a mushroom, the mad hatter and the march hair with the phrase “Feed Your Head!” floating above the mouse.  Seeing as that’s that, today’s blog will be brainstorming for the final project.
So here’s what this bad boy seems to be encompassing: Closed-Circuit Television, citizen journalism and blogs. The CCTV is probably going to be the most difficult to tie into my other two topics, seeing as only the proper authorities can view it and a citizen is going to have a rough time getting hold of the kind of visual information captured by CCTV cameras. Citizen journalism and blogs are easy to tie together since they pretty much go hand in hand. CNN and MSNBC have blog portions to their websites (as I’m sure all network news does) […]

Original post by georgestreet